Aspect, Evidentiality and Tense in Mongolian from Middle Mongol to Khalkha and Khorchin

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Aspect, Evidentiality and Tense in Mongolian from Middle Mongol to Khalkha and Khorchin Aspect, evidentiality and tense in Mongolian From Middle Mongol to Khalkha and Khorchin Benjamin Brosig ©Benjamin Brosig, Stockholm University 2014 ISB N 978-91-628-9124-4 Printed in Sweden by US-AB, Stockholm 2014 Distributor: Department of linguistics, Stockholm University ii Ȼɚɹɱɭɭɞɢɣɧɯɚɚɷɪɯɦɷɞɥɷɷɫɝɚɪɫɚɧ Ȼԛɯɹɫɬɧɵɯɚɚ ɫɨɺɥɢɣɝɧɷɝɬɝɷɫɷɧ ɍɫɵɝ ɧɶ ɭɭɠ ɺɫɵɝ ɧɶ ɞɚɝɚɚɝԛɣ Ԛɧɞɫɷɧԛɡɥɷɷ ɨɪɯɢɠɭɯɚɚɧɚɚɨɥɫɨɧ ɗɪɢɣɧ ɞɷɷɪɷɧɝԛɣɱɚɧɚɪɚɚɯɚɹɫɚɧ ɗɪɯ ɬɷɝɲ ɚɦɶɞɪɚɥɬɚɣ , ɷɝɷɥ ɯɚɣɪɥɚ ɯɚɚɪ ɦɨɧɝɨɥɧɢɣɝ ɦɢɣɧ ɬԧɥԧԧ iii iv Abstract The present thesis consists of an introduction and the following papers: x The aspect-evidentiality system of Middle Mongol. Ural-Altaic Studies, 13 . (forthcoming) x The tense-aspect system of Khorchin Mongolian. In: Pirkko Suihkonen & Lindsay Whaley (eds.), Typology of Languages of Europe and Northern and Central Asia . Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (forthcoming) x Aspect and epistemic notions in the present tense system of Khalkha Mongoli- an. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana . (forthcoming) x Factual vs. evidential? - The past tense forms of spoken Khalkha Mongolian. In: Ad Foolen, Helen de Hoop, & Gijs Mulder (eds.), Empirical Approaches to Evidentiality . Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (under review) Its purpose is to give an account of tense, aspect and evidentiality in three Mongolian varieties: Middle Mongol (MM) as spoken in the Mongol Em- pire, Khalkha Mongolian as spoken in the Mongolian state, and Khorchin Mongolian as spoken in eastern Inner Mongolia, China. MM started out with a tripartite tense distinction and a medium-sized aspectual system. Its past evidential system was tripartite with suffixes for firsthand, non-firsthand and evidentially neutral information. In Khorchin, which developed under the influence of Mandarin and Manchu, evidentiality was lost, and tense was simplified into a past / non-past distinction, alongside with a discontinuous proximal future / past marker. The aspect system underwent some changes, but retained its complexity. Khalkha, which developed under the influence of Turkic and Tibetan, underwent some shared innovations with Khorchin, but retained participles as a multifunctional unit within finite predicates, so that its aspectual system grew more complex. The past evidentiality distinc- tions of MM were basically retained, but the introduction of present tense evidentiality brought a number of changes: the evidentially neutral value shifted to signaling assimilated knowledge, and discontinuous future uses were introduced for all past markers. v vi Contents Abstract .........................................................................................................v Acknowledgements .................................................................................... xi ʡĄʒĄ˃ǶĄʓ ................................................................................................................ xv Introduction ..................................................................................................1 1. Classification of Mongolic ....................................................................................2 2. Terminology ...........................................................................................................4 2.1 Tense ...............................................................................................................4 2.2 Aspectuality ....................................................................................................5 2.3 Evidentiality ...................................................................................................8 2.4 Structural grammatical terms .....................................................................9 3. Previous research and methodology .................................................................9 4. The case studies of TAE in Mongolian .............................................................12 4.1 The aspect-evidentiality system of Middle Mongol ...............................13 4.2 The tense-aspect system of Khorchin Mongolian ..................................14 4.3 Aspect and epistemic notions in the present tense system of Khalkha Mongolian ............................................................................................................15 4.4 Factual vs. evidential? - The past tense forms of spoken Khalkha Mongolian ............................................................................................................16 5. From Middle Mongol to Central Mongolic .......................................................17 5.1 Finitely usable past forms .........................................................................17 5.2 Finitely usable present forms ....................................................................20 5.3 Aspectual constructions in finite predicates ...........................................23 5.4 Possible combinations ................................................................................24 5.5 Evidential particles ......................................................................................26 6. No proof required: Khorchin in Western Manchuria .....................................26 7. Mixed evidentiality: Khalkha between Central Asia and Amdo ..................33 8. Closing words ......................................................................................................40 8.1 Evidentiality in Khalkha: a synthesis .......................................................40 8.2 Perspectives for areal studies on TAE in Greater Mongolia .................43 8.3 A short note on the classification of Central Mongolic .........................44 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................45 Aspect, tense and evidentiality in Middle Mongol ...............................52 1. Inventory ..............................................................................................................54 vii 2. Corpus ..................................................................................................................58 3. Imperfective domain ..........................................................................................58 3.1 The generic -yU and the progressive-habitual -mU ..............................59 3.2 The present progressive -n bu-yu ...........................................................68 3.3 Past imperfective -n a-ju ѫu / bü-lüge .....................................................69 3.4 Future -QU and the form -n a-qu .............................................................71 3.5 Future in the past -QU bü-lüge / a-ju ѫu, and -QU bol-........................75 3.6 -d ...................................................................................................................79 4. Perfective domain ...............................................................................................81 4.1 Perfective past -bA ,-lUGA and -jUGU .....................................................81 4.2 Resultative-Progressive -jU a-ju ѫu / bü-lüge / a-mu ...........................89 4.3 Perfect -GsAn (a-ju ѫu / bü-lüge ) .............................................................91 4.4 -GA ,-GA bü-lüge ........................................................................................97 5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................99 Bibliography ............................................................................................................102 The tense-aspect system of Khorchin Mongolian .............................105 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................105 2. Preliminaries ......................................................................................................106 3. Data collection and research methdology ....................................................107 4. Structure of the Khorchin TA system ............................................................109 5. Markers of the Khorchin TA system ..............................................................112 5.1 Central system ..........................................................................................113 5.2 Minor simple forms and their combinability .........................................140 5.3 Non-verbal predications ...........................................................................148 5.4 Non-temporal and non-aspectual notions ............................................150 6. Areal and diachronic factors: a preliminary evaluation .............................163 Glossings .................................................................................................................168 Bibliography ............................................................................................................168 Aspect and epistemic notions in the present tense system of Khalkha Mongolian ..................................................................................171 1. Corpus, informants and evaluation ...............................................................172 2. Inventory ............................................................................................................173 2.1 Inventory of forms ....................................................................................173 2.2 Forms and their meanings .......................................................................175 3. The evidential
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